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Comment by homonculus1 | Hacker News Reader

>Isn't that the desired outcome?

Not for me, and the way you've framed this is creepy. I don't have diabetes and I very much do not desire to have some of my favorite drinks eliminated by a nanny state trying to solve someone else's self-inflicted health issues. The top-down, metric-based, technocratic ideology doesn't even take my freedom of choice or personal stake in the matter as input.

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When you have a public health crisis, extreme measures need to be taken.

We can't drive on the wrong side of the street. We can't sell tainted food. We can't lie in order to drum up sales.

Society has restrictions on freedom.

AIDS is a public health crisis. Are we to limit homosexual intercourse too? If a can of soda invites government meddling into people's lifestyles then literally nothing is safe. There will always be some aggregate cost that can justify intrusion until every private decision is optimized and regulated according to some central rubric.

The thing is, it's not some pure freedom of choice to consume soda. Soda is massively subsidized by government policy, and marketed aggressively by corporations that make huge profits because of its addictive properties, which they carefully enhance. They spend part of those profits on lobbying to ensure that there are no countervailing forces in society, and that the subsidies remain in place. And the negative externalities of it on our health and on the environment are born by society as a whole. If anything, forces that counter-act their marketing and lobbying enhance your freedom by making it so that you are making a more-informed choice if you consume their product.

Once medicine for all becomes a thing, technocrats believe it is their right and duty to tell you what to eat and drink.

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